1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dental dispensing system especially useful for dispensing individually packaged dental appliances such as orthodontic brackets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In orthodontic treatment, a set of dental appliances (commonly called "braces") is utilized to move malpositioned teeth to orthodontically correct positions. The appliances typically include tiny brackets that are connected to the patient's teeth. An archwire is secured in a slot of the brackets and functions as a track to guide movement of the brackets to shift the associated teeth to desired positions.
Orthodontic brackets are often bonded directly to the tooth surfaces using an adhesive that cures after a predetermined amount of time, or using an adhesive that cures upon exposure to light. Light curable adhesives are advantageous because the bracket may be placed on the tooth and precisely positioned as necessary before the curing lamp is activated to fix the bracket in place.
Recent advances in the field of direct bonded dental articles including orthodontic brackets are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,015,180 and 4,978,007, as well as pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/826,225, all of which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,180 describes in one embodiment an orthodontic bracket and a light curable paste sandwiched between a base of the bracket and a flexible, releasably adhering cover sheet. To bond the bracket to a tooth, the cover sheet is removed from the paste and the bracket base is then applied to the tooth. Such construction represents a time savings for the orthodontist, because the orthodontist need not dispense and apply the adhesive paste to the bracket base before bonding the bracket to the tooth.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,007 and the aforementioned pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/826,225 describe a packaged dental appliance that is precoated with adhesive and is received in a well or recess of a container that protects the adhesive from light, oxygen, water vapor and contaminants. The appliance is preferably retained in the recess in an upright manner that facilitates grasping of the sides of the appliance by a placement instrument or other tool so that the appliance may be removed from the container and placed directly on the surface of the chosen tooth.
Pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/826,225 describes a box having two rows of holes for receiving containers that contain individual precoated appliances. The box is useful as a shipping carton for transporting a set of appliances from the manufacturer to the orthodontist, and is also useful as a setup tray that may be placed next to the patient's chair when it is desired to affix the appliances to the patient's teeth. Each hole in the box corresponds to a certain tooth in the mouth, and the containers having particular appliances are selected ahead of time and placed in the proper holes in the box in an array corresponding to the tooth locations on which each appliance is to be applied.
The containers containing appliances as described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/826,225 can be selected and placed in proper positions in the box either by the manufacturer, or by the orthodontist or orthodontist's staff. Many orthodontists prefer to retain a stock of various brackets for placement in the box to avoid the need for placing a custom order with the manufacturer each time orthodontic treatment is initiated. However, the characteristics of maloccluded teeth and the resultant treatment techniques vary widely, and as a result the set of brackets prescribed for one patient may vary from the set of brackets prescribed for another patient.
Orthodontists who prefer to retain a variety of orthodontic brackets on hand for making a customized patient "kit" or set of brackets are thus faced with the problem of keeping a sufficient number and variety of brackets on hand to meet the foreseen needs of each patient. However, storage space in offices is often at a premium. Moreover, unless the stock is well organized, it is sometimes difficult to quickly find a particular bracket or to ascertain whether or not additional brackets of a particular type should be reordered to retain sufficient stock on hand.